Wis. Officials Spar With Private Schools Over Vouchers

A recent dispute over voucher payments between the Wisconsin
education department and a group of private Milwaukee schools could
force the legislature to amend the state's school choice law, key
lawmakers said last week.

Problems arose shortly after the start of this school year, when the
department threatened to withhold payments from 13 private schools
participating in the state's 10-year-old voucher program in
Milwaukee.

At issue is whether private school operators must prove their
institutions meet the department's definition of a private school
before receiving state tuition-voucher payments for public school
students enrolled in their programs.

"I don't believe that it is the intended policy of this state to
shift public education monies to private day- care programs," state
schools Superintendent John T. Benson said in an Oct. 9 prepared
statement.

The department requires schools participating in the voucher program
to prove they offer sequential curricula and at least 875 hours of
instruction a year.

The schools in question failed to provide that evidence despite
repeated reminders from the department, said Robert Soldner, the
agency's director of school-management services.

Outside supporters of the private schools criticized the department
for waiting until after classes were already in session to crack down
on allegedly unqualified private institutions. They asserted in a
letter to Gov. Tommy Thompson and the legislature that the problems
stemmed from Mr. Benson's "abiding dislike for the choice
law."

Lawsuit Threatened

The education department softened its stance after a lawyer hired by
eight of the schools threatened to sue if payments weren't made
immediately. Nothing in the law "places a burden on any school to prove
to the department that it meets the statutory definition of private
school," Milwaukee lawyer Gordon P. Giampietro wrote in an Oct. 5
letter to Mr. Benson.

Payments had been approved for all but one of the 13 schools as of
late last week, prompting voucher advocates to renew their criticism of
Mr. Benson and his department.

"How did 13 'unqualified' schools become 'qualified' so quickly?"
said Howard L. Fuller, a former Milwaukee superintendent and the
director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning at
Marquette University. "The short answer is that [the education
department] botched the entire operation. Its flawed actions
unnecessarily alarmed parents and damaged the reputation of good
schools."

The oldest of three publicly funded private-school-voucher programs
in the country, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program allows low-income
children to attend private schools, including religious schools, at
taxpayer expense. Participating schools receive $5,326 annual payments
for each student.

This year, the state gave vouchers to 9,300 students to attend 113
schools.

After agreeing to pay the schools if they provided "at least minimal
documentation" that they were indeed private schools, Mr. Benson called
on state legislators to review the law and clarify the program's
eligibility rules.

Sen. Richard A. Grobschmidt, the chairman of the Senate education
committee, said the legislature would likely hold a public hearing on
the issue early next year.

"This has become a policy issue for the legislature to consider,"
said Mr. Grobschmidt, a Democrat. "Certainly, common sense would
require some standard for private schools to participate. Having
kindergarten and early- elementary offerings in a day-care setting is
not necessarily undesirable. The question becomes, 'Is it a school?'
"

"If the [department] is having trouble deciding who should be
considered a private school and who's just a day-care operator, we need
to help them with that," Mr. Olsen said. "The [department] has to make
these decisions, but when they have room for flexibility they can
either go lenient or tough, and that's when we start to have
problems."

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